God Hounds

Chapter 3: The Forest

He just stared at it. Dead silent. And it laid in front of him like it was some other mango he had to eat. He lost his memories. But he knew bodies didn’t fall from trees. He didn’t realize it, but he was getting closer. His feet pulled him towards it unconsciously. It felt like his soul took over, and desperately wanted to see what—who—was inside. He had no choice, anyway. It felt like a moral responsibility. Or an ethic. Or an inborn rule. The only way to react to a dead body is to go towards it. Wasn’t it? He questioned. He could feel its coldness. Like he was already beside it. It only just needed to turn its face to him.

The air felt thicker as he closed in on the corpse. Flies and maggots? Everywhere. The pests sprouted out of nowhere. The stink got in his nose now, but he managed. And the mangoes stopped falling from the tree, like everything else waited… and watched. It was just him and the body. And he was possessed. By curiosity, rather than fear. By a moral center? He thought. Would anyone just run away after seeing a dead body? Was that the normal thing to do? He didn’t care. And it didn’t matter. He was just next to it now.

He moved the carcass with his feet, and turned it towards him. There was a small opening on the white fabric, where he could see—or tried to—what supposedly was the head. But there was only darkness as his eyes continued to focus in on the gap. Then fire. Coming out of the darkness hiding its face. He tried to scream, but he couldn’t even gasp. His throat stung him bloodily at his attempt to voice out anything. And he staggered to the floor as he tried to take a step back. His mango squashed under his hand, but it wasn’t juice that came out of it. And the mango wasn’t a mango anymore. The color red soaked his hand as he lifted it to see a flattened, bleeding heart underneath. The fires stopped inside the body. And the corpse turned to ash. But embers still illuminated and reflected against the green leaves around him. He looked up.

It was normal, he remembered, to stare up at a mango tree while lying down on the tree trunk. Was it normal—he thought—to look up a mango tree and watch it burn itself and drop even more flaming, dead bodies to the ground?

He was gone. The sound of crackling fire began to fade as he sprinted away from the tree and the bodies, going anywhere, going everywhere. At least, the fire didn’t follow. For the first time, he was relieved to be in the darkness again. He liked to be in the darkness, for now. If that meant no dead bodies.

And then a crunch—as he got further away—on leaves and branches, and wood. Hard wood. It took a second for him to realize that he made the sound. He had tripped. On a log in his path. And he was already spinning. Scratches and cuts and wheezes, as he went… downhill. He could feel his body flying through the air then crashing again, rotating and rotating until his bones would switch places.

The sound of crackling fire was replaced. The illumination from the blazes was gone. He could hear… the rushing. And the sprinkling. Of water. He bowled against the dirt and the stones. Now he was twirling underwater. His nose hurt as much as his head. It stopped him from thinking, and it stopped him from breathing. Bubbles and anything, everything, blocked off his sight. Water filled his lungs as he fumbled for a way out. Something throbbed inside him, painfully. His eyes blurred and blurred. Then he hit a rock. It was all just darkness now.

 There was the ringing at first. His ears. Then he got his vision back, although he could only see what was already completely in front of him—particularly the ground. The rushing came back, as the ringing faded. He could sense his feet, being slightly tugged away. It was water. He could feel it. He was still close to the river. Too close. The stream had still been jerking his feet. He could raise his head now. And he could see it. The white figure standing in front of him. He had enough of white fabrics. But this was different. This was fur. It was a dog. Standing closely by. But it wasn’t sniffing. Just watching.

He blinked, and had a hard time looking at it again. He was sleepy, or tired. And he struggled to keep his eyes up. The dog had already turned away from him, vanishing slowly into the darkness, into the woods.

He had enough, to push himself up. But it wasn’t enough to make him walk straight, let alone stand without wiggling. He was coughing water, and wished he could just curse the river. His throat felt like opening or just bleeding inside. He held his neck, thinking it would ease the pain.

He took it step by step, and recalled. All of that, for a mango, he thought. He winced at… everything. His pain wasn’t in a particular spot anymore. Everything in his body was aching. He could rest, but he had no idea how dead he already might be. His best chance, he thought, was to continue. There might be help. There was already a dirt path in front of him. And seeing the dog, he knew he wasn’t the only one in the forest anymore.

His gasps matched the sound of the soil chunking beneath his steps as he continued to walk. The path led to somewhere, he was sure. But it was all the same. Same darkness. Same silence. If there was a path, he could easily be meeting up with those who hanged the bodies on the tree. He could end up like that as well. Or maybe it wasn’t like what he was thinking. Maybe it was just an old burial ritual. Either way, there were people there with him. Those corpses didn’t hang themselves.

A giggle. A child? Yes, a little girl. It was hard for him to confirm that. She passed through him. And she came out of nowhere. He took a step back, as his brows furrowed and his eyes widened in confusion. The woods had no light. But she glowed regardless. But there was no room for confusion in his mind anymore. Only desperation and help. “Hey,” although almost inaudible and just plain airy, his voice could be understood.

She just smiled back at him. Swaying left and right with her arms behind her. She ran, deeper. The rustle rang loudly as she entered a patch of reeds. With a house at the center. Were the fields there all the time? He asked himself. And he followed.

His feet soaked wet, again, as he ran as fast as he could through the reedy fields to find the little girl. Adrenaline was a strange thing to him. He wondered how he could instantly stop feeling any pain or tiredness when he had to do something his life depended on. He felt like he was running in circles. The voice. No, voices, of the little girl came from everywhere. It was on his left, then his right, then he heard it so close to him he could feel the child’s breath. Then he got out. Out of the reeds. There was the house, in front of him.

The dirt path; it was gone. It was just him and the fields and the house. He couldn’t see where he came from. He didn’t even know if it was still actually there. And the house, like the forest, had nothing. No light. No life. The door creaked open, as he stepped into the tiny, wooden structure. All it had was a table. And flies had come out of the covered plate that rested on top of it.

It had the same feeling. It was just like the dead body. Thick air. Unbearable smell. It reeked, and he could feel his feet moving on its own. It was that rule again. No stone unturned. Why would a plate help him? He asked himself. And again, it didn’t matter. His hand hovered over the plate that hid what was inside, and he could feel the wood just shaking with him. Everything around him fell dead. No more shaking. No more thick air. He opened the cover.

It was a mango… until it bled. Blood. The red thing slowly spurted out of it. Then the glow. The glow of the little girl. She was behind him. It was behind him. He turned.

A creature, no, it was the same girl—on the doorway. It was standing on all fours. Then it shrieked. And he couldn’t tell which was inverted—her body or her head. Then the child crawled towards him.

The scream seemed to freeze his heart for a moment, as he shuddered and stumbled back. Then he leaped, or fell. Out of the window and back into the reeds.

He scampered. The blades of grass couldn’t have cut him harder. The giggle that chimed in every direction, turned into an inhuman scream from a skulking little girl.

The mockery returned. From the plants and the trees. The feeling of grass scratching him and pulling him back. The pool of water beneath the reeds felt more like quick sand as well, or hands soullessly dragging him down. But he shoved everything off as hard as he tried to yell. The shrieks grew louder and louder. Until he could feel the girl just inches from his feet. He could even hear her growling, or craving. It felt like there was no end to the fields. Then he screamed. Audibly.

He crashed to the ground and crawled further and further. The screaming slowly faded behind him. And he felt himself on stones and dirt rather than reeds now. He was out. He looked back. No more glow. No more girl. He moved further away from the grass, as he was catching his breath.

He saw clearly now. And the view was slowly illuminating. But it wasn’t from a glow. Or a fire. It was moonlight. He looked ahead. And the moon glared back. Bigger than he could ever have imagined. It was his first time. To see the moon that close.

He got up and walked towards the edge. With everything throbbing, he seemed like he was better off dead. But the moon. The moon paused everything for a moment.

But there was a rustle again. From the fields. He turned back. That was it, he thought. Where else could he go? Who ever thought he’d die from a cannibalistic, crawling child? The air, heavier and heavier again. Or was that his sweat, now? Tears welled up in his eyes; and the sweet view of moonlit trees was instantly turned to a blurry death because of fluids blocking his eyes. He was down on his knees. At least, he thought, he was going to die under moonlight. At least, he got his voice back. He was sniffing, and wheezing, and it got closer. And closer. And closer.

And the fur gleamed perfectly in the moonshine. He looked up. It was the dog. He heaved a sigh of relief, and closed his eyes for a second. He chuckled under his breath, then looked back at his old friend.

The white dog strolled towards him quietly. Not even a bark. Its stare glinted perfectly against the moonbeams. It stopped right in front of him. “I’m so glad to see yo—” the dog pounced, and he fell. Off the cliff. A last look, at the moonlight. Then a crash onto the downhill slope of stone below him. Then the familiar darkness.